Carmelo Anthony Takes the Wheel

ENLARGE

Carmelo Anthony furious at the Celtics? New York eats that up. Here, the star forward during a game last month.
Reuters

By

Jason Gay

Jan. 8, 2013 8:21 p.m. ET

Deep into that crummy boring college-football championship in Florida, word began to emerge that, 1,200 miles north, there'd been a bizarre sort-of-almost confrontation in the underbelly of Madison Square Garden after the Knicks-Celtics game. Something about Carmelo Anthony. Something about Kevin Garnett. Something about words being exchanged. Bad words. Words Anthony would later characterize to Knicks reporters as "certain things that you just don't say to men." Then: something weird about a bus.

Not long after, a video epilogue arrived, courtesy of a Boston television outlet—Anthony in the Garden garage, dressed in street clothes and a merry red winter cap, waiting outside the Celtics bus. That's all it seemed to depict: A man waiting for a bus. The same kind of thrilling human drama that occurs a few blocks away inside the glamorous Eighth Wonder of the Natural World, the Port Authority.

Now Anthony was probably not there to tell the Celtics bus driver to take the West Side Highway to the Henry Hudson to the Saw Mill. He was probably not there to tell his opponents they could still get to Veselka and order the latkes. Anthony was miffed at the Celtics' virtuoso antagonizer Kevin Garnett, with whom he tangled repeatedly during the game. Anthony said Tuesday that he wanted to talk to Garnett again. That's why he went to the bus. To talk.

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That Garnett gets under an opponent's skin is never a surprise; he's made a spectacular career out of getting under opponent skin while becoming one of the best defensive players of his era. Anthony apparently took exception and wanted to continue the conversation after the heated game. After the game their coaches swerved away from the topic, not wanting to goose the drama.

Now you can look at this odd dust-up a couple of ways. The first is just the obvious tsk-tsk reaction: Anthony shouldn't have sought out Garnett after the game. It's just not the type of thing you're supposed to do. Settle battles on the court; keep your composure; be a leader and so on. Don't let Kevin Garnett be Kevin Garnett! The aging forward is probably thrilled he's now subletted a nice one-bedroom in Anthony's head. Coach Mike Woodson said Tuesday that it was important for players to be "professional." Yes, yes, yes! All of these observations are totally valid and well-reasoned. We are in hearty agreement that we are all responsible adults striving to be civil and decorous and should not do things like look for Kevin Garnett on a bus.

Can we leave detention now?

Here's the truth: I suspect that Knicks fans secretly love The Bus Story. Maybe not even secretly. This is Anthony's third season in New York, and he is playing what many believe to be the best basketball of his career. Monday afternoon, Anthony was named the NBA's Eastern Conference Player of the Week and he's a contender—a legitimate contender, not just one of those New York-loves-the-sound-of-its-own-voice contenders—in the league MVP race. The Knicks are an imperfect team but they are in the thick of it, and the motivated play of Anthony is the principal reason why.

And yet, throughout his time in the league, there's been this lurking concern that Anthony, while one of the league's finest scorers, was not equipped with the mettle of a champion like, well, Garnett. And though Monday night's postgame action was irrational and probably foolish (and possibly finable and suspendable)—there's also the fact that the Knicks lost, which seems to have been forgotten—it was exactly the kind of signal that Knicks fans have been hoping for. Anthony is here for business.

There's also this: The fact that it came against Boston—and Garnett—makes it a little better, richer, tantalizing. Anthony furious at the Bobcats? Yawn; you could not care less. Anthony furious at the Celtics? New York eats that up. This city is chemically drawn to any kind of Boston agitation. The Yankees-Red Sox rivalry has been zombified in recent years. Jets-Patriots feels like a sitcom. There's room for the Knicks and the Celtics to make Northeast clatter here.

Boston's bus will be back. The Knicks travel up to Massachusetts in a couple of weeks and again in March before the Celtics wheel into the Garden for a showdown March 31. We'll know a lot more about these Knicks by then—how resilient they are; how resistant to injury they can be; how Amar'e Stoudemire has progressed in his return from injury. We should have a good sense if this team is ready to make noise in the playoffs. But it feels like we already know what's going on with Carmelo Anthony. He's in. He wants to drive this bus.

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